What Happened to Mass Effect Andromeda's Animation? - Extra Frames

Seriously how many threads on this?

Interesting vid and very informative. Bottom line though, as he pointed out, is whatever the reason its bad, its just bad. Pointing fingers doesn't really change all that. Having it all fixed up nice and tidy 6 months from now doesn't really change that. Sadly all of us, Bioware included, will just have to live with My Face Is Tired and Ugly Sara memes forever now.

It may also remind Bioware not to push these things up again, unfinished.

Sadly it may not be up to them, as their EA overlords are pushing.

Yeah, 5 year dev cycle with at least one extension or delay in there.

Time is meaningless if the production or management is messy, they can waste a lot of time. Id say this game was made in 3 years max, maybe 2 when they had a somewhat coherent path for it. I think a lot of things changed or were changed, somethign was outsourced. I dont know the part of EAs messing into it, but theres gotta be some. They clearly ran out of time, or the development team was not on par with the tasks and expectations, or management just didnt care.

I think somewhere it was said, it wasted them a year trying to make the planets more like in No Mans Sky. Then you had other problems, like staff and lead writer changing. Hence the story, that seems like all over the place.

It is not the tools. Do you know that CDPR actually go through the procedural generated conversation scenes and change them if they feel that it is not good enough? That right there is quality control and polish. ME:A simply lacks that. It is like nobody actually check those scenes or they hired a blind person to check them.

Supposedly they spent a year trying to make parts of the game like No Man's Sky, before figuring out it wasn't going to work. I wonder whether that contributed to parts of the game feeling unpolished at release?

I'd also love to know whether that bad idea originated with management at Bioware or was forced on them by the publisher.

They don't really have enough budget for a game this big. You can see they are trying to make a great game but couldn't.

I liked the work that BW Montreal put in on ME3 (entirety of multiplayer and the Omega DLC, for those who don't know), but I think it's patently obvious that they were not ready to take on an entire game from the ground up, considering that - to my knowledge - they have no prior experience with the Frostbite engine. I really can't understand why the torch was passed to them considering that Mass Effect is Bioware's most well-known IP; whether it was forced on them by EA, or whether Edmonton decided that their new IP needed 100% of their attention because it's going to be God's gift to video juegos, or something else entirely.

Actually Bioware is using Frostbite from DICE. A really good looking engine and a darn optimized one.... just that it is not designed for RPG.

Yes, CDPR put a lot into the REDEngine and the procedural tools -but- they still check all the procedural generated conversation scenes and if they are not happy with the results, they spent time adjusting them. Tools are important yes but polish and quality control is more important for best product and user experience. You can have the best tools but if you dont have time or dont have people who gives a damn... no tool will save you.

I agree, tools are crucial but not the only answer for product quality. The attitude of the developer is another key factor. Unfortunately, Bioware fails miserably in both regards. Frostbite is a very capable engine but only DICE could push it to the maximum, so I would not blame MEA's presentation to the engine is not for RPG really.